Advisors: Four Ways to Land Millennial Clients

If you think about millennials as baby-faced, avocado toast-eating thrill seekers, you may be missing an important opportunity to grow your practice.

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Believe it or not, the oldest of this digitally savvy generation are now turning 41. They’re confident and open to taking greater risks with their finances—but right now, research shows, they’re investing in low-return savings accounts.

Importantly, they have only marginal interest in robo-advisors: They still crave in-person attention and frequent communication.

So set aside the abundant myths about the millennial generation, and focus on the opportunity they represent for financial advisors. Here are four ways advisors can get access to the population that needs their help the most:

1. Leverage multiple platforms to connect and educate clients and prospects. Millennials are far more information-hungry than GenX and Baby Boomers. According to a national Broadridge study, nearly 70% of millennials believe a combination of e-mails, texts and social media updates contribute to greater trust with an advisor. More than 40% would like to see updates from an advisor daily to bi-weekly. Advisors can use LinkedIn to post updates on the markets, labor reports, economic indicators and legislative news. They can start a blog, share compliance-friendly content across multiple social media platforms and use Skype and Google Hangouts to grow closer to clients. Listen to your clients across social platforms.

2. Create bespoke experiences that are unique to clients and their needs. Advisors can bring clients together for events like financial education dinners and webcasts that focus on their needs around life changes. Topics can include financial planning for starting a family, paying off student loans, taking out a mortgage or caring for an ailing parent. Lawyers or accountants can also be present to provide a more comprehensive view.

3. Meet existing clients’ children. More than 20% of millennials said they would consider using their parents’ advisor but have never met them. This represents a huge untapped pool of potential clients. Advisors would benefit from asking existing clients to introduce their children –more than half of whom are actively saving for retirement.

4. It’s about experiences, not big-ticket possessions. Advisors should make the effort to understand millennials’ goals and aspirations more deeply. Consumption trends are shifting as millennials value experiences that may draw less on capital resources and more on personal resources such as time, travel, energy, health and education. Advisors can work with clients to personally plan for long-term goals or experiences in an open- minded way. Does a client want to take a year off and go around the world? Advisors can explain how to balance personal and professional goals while still saving for the future. The advisor who can balance these skills will draw in clients and retain them for decades to come.

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